Winchester 1873

I had one in 357 and regret selling it. I obsessed over the purchase for nearly a year, handling various Ubertis etc, before finally pulling the trigger.

Honestly the only gripe with the Japanese-built Winchester is they are too good; like it was cut out with a laser and assembled by someone with OCD.

You'll feel ashamed just pushing one in the loading gate! That is actually a good price imo for octagon and aaa maple; mine had neither of those @ $1299.

Mine was a 20 inch though and I thought it balanced great. Not sure how the 24 might be; I never handled one.
 
That is a pretty gun. Those maple lever action give me a special feeling all up and down my leg. The Browning BL-22 in maple is sexy to me too.
 
$1499.99 is right at MSRP for a Sporter in 45LC with a color case hardened receiver. If you must have the maple stock then it would be worth it in my opinion since it is very hard to find the rifle with that stock set. The same gun with a walnut stock sells for $1299 all day long.

I have a Short Rifle in 357 Magnum. The Miroku Winchesters are beautifully made and the 1873's are the slickest stock lever guns. Here's a video of mine just in case you are interested:
 
The Winchester '73 is the most popular rifle in cowboy action shooting so I know a little about them.

There are four sources for 1873s. You can buy an original Winchester made between 1873 and the 1920s. Of course, none of those were chambered in .45 Colt which was strictly a revolver cartridge until very recently. I saw one for sale in my local Cabela's store the other day (a .32 WCF); they are usually very expensive.

There was a reproduction imported a few years back by a company called Chaparral. CDNN Sports had them for a while. These don't have a good reputation and they are no longer imported and possibly no longer made. I'd avoid them.

Uberti has been making reproductions of the '73 for many years. They make them in several variations of finish, barrel length, stock type, etc. They are imported by several US distributors including Stoeger (which like Uberti is part of the Beretts family of companies), Taylors & Company, Cimarron Firearms and probably others I have forgotten. They are pretty good guns but they really benefit from a little tweaking. New prices start a little north of $1,000 depending on which variant you choose. There is a good bit of aftermarket support for these guns because they are so heavily used by cowboy action shooters.

The one you linked is a "modern" Winchester '73 that is made by Miroku in Japan, the company that makes many of the Browning guns. I think they've been making the '73 for about four years now. Miroku is a quality manufacturer and many shooters think this rifle is a little better out of the box than the Uberti. It is also a little more expensive, there is not much aftermarket support and there are fewer variants as compared with Uberti.

Some .45 Colt rifles of various brands suffer from a condition we call "blowby" in which gas flows back from the chamber into the shooter's face. It is particularly evident with light loaded rounds. Not all rifles do this but some that do can be rather unpleasant to shoot. My Uberti '73 is a .357 but if I were shopping for a big bore I would choose the .44-40 (aka .44 WCF), which was the original chambering of the Winchester 1873 when it was introduced in (you guessed it) 1873. It has a slightly bottlenecked case with comparatively thinner case walls (compared to the .45 Colt) and tends to seal the chamber very well. People who shoot black powder cartridges love the .44-40 and its "cousins", the .38-40 and the .32-20.

The '73 is a great rifle but you gotta pay to play. About the cheapest I have seen a good used '73 reproduction sell for is about $700.
 
Can you anneal the case mouth? This would make it softer and seal better. I have done this with a 4570.


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$1499.99 is right at MSRP for a Sporter in 45LC with a color case hardened receiver. If you must have the maple stock then it would be worth it in my opinion since it is very hard to find the rifle with that stock set. The same gun with a walnut stock sells for $1299 all day long.

I have a Short Rifle in 357 Magnum. The Miroku Winchesters are beautifully made and the 1873's are the slickest stock lever guns. Here's a video of mine just in case you are interested:


Nice video! But a lever action video in a Glock shirt? Heresy!
 
Can you anneal the case mouth? This would make it softer and seal better. I have done this with a 4570.


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I have a friend who has been shooting primarily .45 Colt in cowboy action matches for about seven years. He was experiencing blowby in a couple of different rifles. He shoots black powder and it was causing the actions to get dirty. He did start to anneal his cases but it did not completely resolve the problem. The .45 Colt cases are pretty stiff and some rifle chambers are cut with a generous tolerance. Eventually he purchased a used '73 in .44-40 and found that all the fouling went down the bore; his action stayed clean. It was one of those "where have you been all my life moments".
 
$1499.99 is right at MSRP for a Sporter in 45LC with a color case hardened receiver. If you must have the maple stock then it would be worth it in my opinion since it is very hard to find the rifle with that stock set. The same gun with a walnut stock sells for $1299 all day long.

I have a Short Rifle in 357 Magnum. The Miroku Winchesters are beautifully made and the 1873's are the slickest stock lever guns. Here's a video of mine just in case you are interested:

Cool video, range looks familiar haha.

Is it bad that as I watch that video, all I can think about it modifying it to run my Octane9?
 
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